I know I should probably stop posting links to stories in the NY Times, but this one caught my eye. I am a big sports fan, and it is hard to ignore all the performance enhancing banter going on. This story, by Gina Kolata, is great because the basis for it is two scientific studies. What I am more interested in, however, is what the future holds.
I believe that the cheaters will be gaining ground on the anti-doping agencies. Recombinant technologies are getting fancier and better, partly driven by health-care industry. The National Institutes of Health is pushing hard for patient-targeted therapeutics, using genomic analysis of the diseases affecting an individual. As such, it is likely that in the near future, therapies and performance enhancing regimens will be tailored to the individual, making them harder to be detected. And we are not even talking about the day when genetic engineering goes mainstream. Yes, some day it will be possible to edit your DNA, whether for medical purposes or enhancing your performance.
In short, the future will be a scary place for ethics surrounding the athletic world.
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